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WPA 2.0: Whoever Rules the Sewers Rules the City Competition

Sponsor: The Architect’s Newspaper, UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, Ziman Center for Real Estate Development

Type: 2-stage

Language: English

Registration fee:
$40 – per student or independent team
$100 – professional team

Eligibility: Designers of all fields are eligible to submit for this competition, which is staged in two phases. Multi-disciplinary teams are particularly encouraged.

Awards:
$5,000 to as many as six professional competition finalists to continue to develop their proposals.

Timetable:
24 July, 2009 – registration deadline
7 August, 2009 – proposals are due
21 August, 2009 – finalists announced
10 November, 2009 – phase 2 submittals due

Jury:
Stan Allen – Principal, Stan Allen Architect; Dean, school of Architecture, Princeton University
Cecil Balmond – Deputy Chairman, Ove Arup and Partners
Elizabeth Diller – Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Walter Hood – Principal, Hood Design Urban Landscape + Site Architecture
Thom Mayne – Founder and Director of design, Morphosis
Marilyn Jordan Taylor – Consulting Partner, SOM; Dean, PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania

Design Challenge:
WPA 2.0 encourages projects that explore the value of infrastructure not only as an engineering endeavor, but as a robust design opportunity to strengthen communities and revitalize cities. There is no requirement that proposals be located in the United States. Nevertheless, it will be important for designers to demonstrate the applicability of proposals located outside the United States to the United States context.
Beyond the mere replacement of obsolete or overtaxed infrastructure, WPA 2.0 seeks design ideas that exploit the opportunity for such solutions to be leveraged, through nested scales of thinking, into strategies that catalyze a larger and more visible public benefit. In this respect, it is looking for proposals that put architecture back to work through designs that:
– are embedded with added value (multifunctionality, imageability, public presence),
– represent potential prototypes, adaptable for use in numerous locations,
– are locally self-regulated and controlled (i.e. which “unlock” the grid),
– strategically attract investment and/or generate community stability, and
– generate new sustainability practices.

Submission Requirements:
Proposals shall consist of a digital design sketchbook that outlines and illustrates:
– core premise and objectives (the problem addressed and its solutions),
– inventiveness,
– design approach, developed at a conceptual level, and
– opportunities for implementation (qualities that are tangible and concrete, such as why or how it might be financed)
The sketchbook should include both visual and textual information, with pages formatted vertically 8.5” by 11”: either in single sides or as double-page spreads. Its length must not exceed 10 sides. The digital file, in PDF format @ 300 dpi, should not exceed 10 MB.

For more information, go to: http://wpa2.aud.ucla.edu/info/